Desquer urged them toward the square building. “Quick! We can hide here, until we know more about this place. Keep your guns ready.” The commander’s icy eyes were searching the gloom of the temple as they crossed the threshold. The symbol of Osiris, sign of the horned bull, was carved everywhere. Crumbling, broken pillars made the interior of the temple a labyrinth. The floor was littered with smashed blocks of stone. It was very dim here, but one ray of red light flamed like a sword-blade through a gap in the wall and fell directly upon the throne that stood on a dais at the farther end of the room. Tony and the others looked down a long aisle toward the throne and the statue upon it—the statue of a man, clad in stylized flowing robes, with the head of a bull upon the human shoulders. “Come on!” Desquer whispered. He gripped his gun. Tony felt the butt of his own weapon cold against his palm as he walked on. The approach to the dais seemed endless. Incredible journey amid the wreckage of a forgotten civilization! So might a lost soul have journeyed to Osiris ... A scrap of verse came unbidden to Tony. “_Ten hundred shaven priests did bow to Ammon’s altar day and night,_ _Ten hundred lamps did wave their light through Ammon’s carven house—and now_ _Foul snake and speckled adder with their young ones crawl from stone to stone_ _For ruined is the house and prone the great rose-marble monolith!_” Desquer stopped. His figure stood rock-still for a moment. The gun swung up, aimed at the statue on the throne. And now Tony saw what the commander had already realized. It was no statue that faced them. The being was alive! CHAPTER VI Before the Gods Only one thing could have stopped Desquer’s finger on the trigger—and that thing happened. The monster on the throne spoke. Thick and almost unintelligible, its voice poured out from the inhuman muzzle, as the hands twitched on the arms of the throne. “Don’t!” the bull-headed creature moaned. “It’s Brady—Brady!” Sheer amazement petrified Desquer. He lowered his gun at last, shaved scalp shining with sweat. Tony swallowed a lump in his dry throat, glaring at the hybrid on the dais. Brady? Captain Brady? “Those devils did this to me,” the thick voice went on. “Surgery, commander—super-surgery. Remember their healing ray? They grafted the flesh and skin of a bull on to my head and speeded up the cellular activity tremendously with their ray. I—I don’t dare move. This head is so heavy it would snap my spine if—if—” Desquer said in a low voice, “Are we in danger now?” His eyes searched the shadows. “You’re doomed,” Brady mouthed. “Thotmes told me the hellish plan behind all this. Thotmes is the high priest. He’s one of the very few that know the secret of Alu. He told me—almost everything. It tickled his ego, I think, to gloat over his triumph ...”